History of Ancestry

 

1983  --  Ancestry Publishing is founded, publishing over 40 family history magazines and genealogy reference books

1990 - Ancestry publications move to floppy disks

1996 - Ancestry.com is launched, paving the way for online family history

1997 - Ancestry offers family history on CDs (compilations of those who use Family Tree Maker)

2000 - Ancestry launches first census images; completes 1930 census in 2003

2001 - Ancestry reaches the 1,000,000,000 record milestone; Ancestry.co.uk debuts

2006 - Ancestry introduces Australian, Canadian and German sites/records

2006 - Ancestry adds new customer-centric innovations (shaky leaf hints and member trees)

2007 - Ancestry adds more international sites, inc. French, Italian, Swedish and Chinese

2009 - Ancestry reaches the 1,000,000 subscriber mark

2010 - Ancestry offers the first season of  Who Do You Think You Are?

2011 - Ancestry unveils the Ancestry app for iPad and iPhone

2012 - Ancestry hits the 2,000,000 subscriber mark

2012 - Ancestry DNA is launched

2013 - Ancestry announces exclusive agreement with FamilySearch to digitize one billion records

            from its Granita Mountain Vault

2015 - Ancestry releases exclusive collection of U.S. wills and probate records

2018 - Ancestry achieves 10,000,000 people tested via AncestryDNA; 15,000,000 in 2019

2020 - Ancestry reaches over 3.5 million subscribers and 27 billion records

2021 - AncestryDNA tests over 20,000,000 people

2022 - AncestryDNA becomes worldwide

** The above image shows Ancestry's first magazine publication, 1985-2010. These early publications can be accessed via Google Books. 

Washington State Digital Archives Rated Best

History buffs, genealogy fans, and those who just want to know who great-great Uncle Bill really married, can thank the family tree that they live in the Evergreen State. Because when it comes to searching family history online, Washington State Digital Archives is simply the best in the country. (And that was not just made up…)

The Digital Archives got a well-deserved nod in the just-on-newsstands edition of Ancestry Magazine, which put out its “most Wired States of America” rankings and gave the Evergreen State the top spot for online genealogical records.

This really comes as no surprise to Sam Reed – our State Archivist tells Sam Reed we have more than 80,000,000 records – yes, 80,000,0000 – on the Web that the public can click through to dig into their past.

And he also adds, “We are only just beginning.”

If you haven’t seen or visited the Digital Archives, do it virtually 24/7 at http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/. This program – which makes millions and millions of important records, photographs and thousands of audio recordings available instantly – is the first of the kind in the country and is now a model for other states wanting to preserve records electronically.

Other states that got thumbs up by Ancestry Magazine for their online genealogical records searches included Missouri, Illinois, Nevada and Pennsylvania.